


Raw meat

by Radiolaria



Series: Mauvais Genre [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Angst, Burning imagery, Character Death, Choking, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Gen, Religious Fanaticism, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 17:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Radiolaria/pseuds/Radiolaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“All that I ask is that if you need help to go somewhere, and I assume you will want to go somewhere else than the camping area, you take her as a guide, sort of. Don’t wander off. It can be a bit overwhelming, this place. Melody accepted, disgracefully.”</p><p>All he knew about her was that she was a performer. Of what kind? Discovering it could be stupidly dangerous.</p><p>A modern nearly-Noir in the desert, set at Burning Man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rita/gifts).



> Written for Rita. It got out of hand, in every way. Sorry.
> 
> Original Prompt: River taking 11 through his first experience at Burning Man.
> 
> Notes:  
> -The tags make it sound as usual far more daunting than it is. Most of the violence or manipulation is implied.  
> -Titus was the eleventh Caesar.  
> -Everything you need to know about [Burning Man](http://www.burningman.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> A/N: Thanks to G. for the anti-depressant betareading. Despite the researchs, I have no TARDIS to actually be at Burning Man, as a consequence, any mistake is mine.  
> Doctor Who, Burning Man and all the art pieces reproduced or partially reproduced in this work belong to their owners. No copyright infringement is intended. No profit is made.

“I should hate you for this.” Titus murmured, not looking up at Rory from his basket of eggs.

“Come on. We have air conditioning and the Kinks integral.” The blond man in the driver’s seat answered, his large sunglasses like fly’s eyes.

“Not that.” Titus brandished the lettuce in his knees and threw it back into the large box of food and vegetables keeping him company in the back seat. “Amy! I didn’t know it was supposed to be your romantic…”

“Hardly romantic. She is working, you know? We just thought I could take a few days off to join her and spend some time with her.”

“You could have warned me anyway.”

“You would have refused the invitation and spend your holiday blissfully uncultured.”

“Uncultured.” Titus snarled, arms folded. “I’m not a Petri dish. I would have stayed far from your ridiculous excuses to constantly shag in public area. Thank you, but no thanks. Florida was enough of you two naked for a life time.”

The boxes shook around him as they hit a crackled section of the road and he secured the cabbages and packets at his feet. He took in the vast, boring spaces between the road and the hills in the distance. The Nevada desert stretched in all its dry, wind-worn paleness, his home for the next few days.  And then…

He had no home anymore.

“I gather you don’t like us as much as you’d like to make us believe,” Rory mocked him; certainly sensing his thoughts had drifted to dangerous place.

Titus could not be left alone, after what happened, and he hated the carefulness of his friends around him. Not even in words hushed, but in loud, childish distractions like trips in Las Vegas and Roma. Titus was grateful , maybe. It was a defence mechanism they had not invented for him and he was too old to give it up, ever.

“You are very wrong and you know it.” Their gazes met in the rear-view mirror and Titus allowed himself to smirk, sarcastic. “I happen to enjoy your company, enormously. You, her, together. It’s just that I hate it when you squeeze me in your reunions after weeks of separation and…”

Rory waved a hand, dismissively.

“Sorry about that. But if you find it so frustrating, why don’t you bring your…”

“My what? Companion? Latest conquest?” Titus was perusing the content of the box next to him, wondering what on earth they were supposed to do with all those vegetables.  “Amy lectured me for hours last time, because I had ditched Jamie for Victoria.”

Rory’s eyes in the rear-view mirror looked up and he seemed to pout, approving.

“She was right,” he contributed. “You and Jamie seemed to work fine, happy even.”

“I am perfectly happy with flings,” Titus carolled. He could never see understand lifelong commitments, not because he wanted to stay free at all times, but because he could not emphasize enough the changeability of the Human heart. Staying chained to someone whom you had nothing in common with anymore was lunacy. ”Jamie was not, Amy is not happy with my flings, you are not. And everybody is worse than my father.”

“He wanted you to settle with Turlough, didn’t he?” Rory peeped at him and Titus fished a cabbage out of the box.

“He was probably more in love with him than I was,” Titus mused, trying to spin on his index a small cabbage. “All he wanted was someone who could manage me.”

Rory didn’t answer, eyes to the dusty road and Titus wondered if he was in for a good lesson from Amy on how to live without squandering every relationship he had.

He thought it odd Rory asked him to come here. Burning Man. The irony had not escaped him. He enjoyed parties as much as any other man of his age, but artsy big events with the likes of Burning Man were not his cup of tea. Too much noise, and movements when he needed to pause and reflect. But far away. He had wanted for quite some time to settle in Europe where had had studied and grown up, especially after Gallifrey, but Rory and Amy seemed quite happy in the States. And he was quite happy to stay in touch for as long as possible. He kept postposing for them.

And Victor.

He shifted on his seat, shivered slightly when his inner thigh, damp with sweat against the simile-leather, came into contact with the cool air in the car. He reached for a vest behind, only to find more food supplies, and growled balefully.

 

***

 

It was nearly five when Black Rock City came into view, a large, half-filled agglomeration of camping vehicles and tents, with art installations at the centre. A temporary woody self-sufficient city, police and café included was waiting there, buzzing and burning, literally. People from all other the country and sometimes the world were gathering for a week to celebrate self-expression and community living. Rory had said he needed it, without further details. And Titus, frayed at the seam, had accepted.

As they were waiting at the gate for their vehicle to be checked, he felt a series of tingling, disagreeable pressure points climbing up his spine. The different cars and tents were arranged in concentric arcs of a circle, opening on a vast circular area, the Open Plaza. Just like walking in Hell.

And they were apparently about to drive into the fifth circle, if Amy’s instructions concerning their camp site, shouted over the satellite phone, were to be trusted.

“Amy, we’re not in Alaska! We must be 30 feet from the caravan. Extraterrestrial street, you said?”

Amy would keep on bawling at the top of her lungs about the camping neighbours and their saw and Titus closed his eyes, already tired. They drove slowly through the temporary streets, with names like Laissez-faire and Interstellar as radial coordinates and hour coordinates from 2:00 to 10:00. The brief inhabitants of the city were dressed in the most festive apparels, like carnival, on bicycles of all sorts, by foot, hugging and calling each other from one end of the street to the other. Titus sunk deeper in his seat, and exhaled loudly.

They eventually found Amy’s trailer, following the shouting and saw. The caravan –now blue, he pinched the bridge of his nose, aghast- was remarkably harmless after the impressive and surrealist installations they had encountered on their way:  rolling caravels and wind-operated machines, bicycles dressed as anything but bicycles, floats and incongruous vehicles.  They parked beside the trailer between a tepee-like tent and what could only be described as a castle on wheels. Amy peeked out from a window, her carroty round top bobbing as if not attached to any body, before disappearing and letting her long, leggy figure burst out of the door frame to welcome her friends.

Manoeuvring between boxes and tanks, Titus extracted himself from the car and came out stumbling in the dust, right into Amy’s arms, who received him with a fierce hug and a fit of giggle. Her attention rapidly drifted to her husband, leaving Titus in the middle of the way, scratching his head, witness to a reunion of cinematic proportions.

Since the kissing was not curbing, Titus resolved to start unloading the car alone. Quite a pleasant task once the neighbours had concluded the sawing serenade.”Don’t mind me”, he claimed as he passed the couple, busy devouring each other’s face and neck, a box of eggs and ice cream in each hand. He could probably find his way to the fridge without their help. And with all the unresolved -but soon to be- sexual tension heating the atmosphere, they would hinder more than help his task. _Old married couple_ , he hissed between his teeth while stacking provisions, having fun reorganising the whole of Amy’s interior –how someone with such so-called artistic abilities could be so poor at saving space, he could never understand.

He was shuffling the pillows on the large convertible in the middle of the trailer, when he uncovered –of all things- a body.

Rather, a foot and a calf attached to a body.

 Female, judging by the hips and steep small of the back, wrapped in a crimson kimono, whose motif would blend perfectly with the garish material covering Amy’s bed. He could have landed on her, had he not paid attention. His eyes trailed up the lying form, busy drowning in pillows and curls. He could hear a faint, steady breathing coming from the head, a tangled mess of golden brown tendrils. The beflowered back was rising and falling before him, with a gentle, almost hypnotising submission to the airy rhythm and he find himself staring at the movement before slapping himself out of reverie.

“Amy,” he cried out. “Amy, I need you. There is a …” his voice dropped to an amplified hush. “A sleeping person in your…”

Amy and Rory were ignoring him.

Titus rolled his eyes, bravely picked the nearest fruit, a banana, with the firm intention of peeling it during his inspection of the unexpected visitor. He was ready to shake her up and ask her precisely what she was doing here; but that would have been rude, even ruder than sneak in and dose off in someone else’s trailer. He was positive about Rory not mentioning anyone beside them –under no circumstance he would have accepted to sleep in a tent; a trailer or nothing, he had specified.

Yet, he could not simply ignore the community spirit ruling the place. He knew at some point he would be confronted to such situations. Slowly, very slowly, the figure rolled on her back, kimono opening to reveal a perfectly sensible cream tank top and sweat shorts. The curls at last tumbled from across the face to reveal a charming, if somewhat smug grin.

“Hello, Sweetie”, the owner of the smile purred. She had a striking face, all-playful wrinkles and lips. Mineral eyes.

“Get out.”

The green eyes and lively face startled at the banana in his hand, menacingly unpeeled, and she blurted out: “What on earth are you trying to do with that?”

He confusedly looked at the fruit, then the woman, now lifted on her elbows peering, before tossing the incriminated banana in the next vegetable case, uneaten. To preserve the little dignity he had left, he folded his arms on his chest and repeated his injunction.

“No, seriously, get out. You have nothing to do in the private trailer of the Petrichor company.” He stilled, unsure before the woman’s expression of mischief and moved wonder. ”Who are you? I want to know who I threw out of my…”

“Your?” The tone was warming up, as if barely opening hostilities.

“Yeah, my trailer,” he hallooed proudly, opening his arms to show off the smart interior. She didn’t break eye contact. “Quite pricey. I lent it to Amy. And yes, she painted it blue.”

The woman performed a small, circular movement with the head.

“She didn’t.” The hum escaping her full lips was assured, slightly teasing. ”Idris did.”

“Who’s Idris?” The Doctor pulled a wry face at her, to which she shrugged, whimsical. He pointed at her, frankly grated. “Still, get out.”

Regaining her composure, she pondered, eyes squinted, jaw imperceptibly loose.

“Do you want me to get out first and scream the answers to your questions from outside.” She bent her knees, revealing a shapely leg and started nonchalantly flexing her toes, head tilted. “Or we could come up with a more sensible approach.” She looked up from under her lids, challenging.

When he did not answer, she swung on the mattress to a sitting position, her light-catching curls bouncing and billowing around her face. Nice hair.

Which sent, odiously, impossibly, shivers down his spine.

He had seen this hair and face before, a long time ago. He had an excellent visual memory, one he was constantly praised for, that allowed him to catalogue the thousands of faces his wandering education had allowed him to meet. But this face came from a time before Europe even. A time when he would loom over the large staircase in the old family house, Gallifrey. He seemed to recall, with a sharp, nerve-wracking accuracy, the face, though the hair seemed lighter at the time, framed by the impressive walnut railing of the first floor.

He must have been so small.

Obviously the face was younger as well. The circumstances escaped him, nagging. He could only associate her with the diaphanous mermaids of his illustrated books.

Only, they were flaccid, translucent creatures, like drowned. The woman seemed all fire and strength. It was entirely possible she had been a maid about to be interviewed or even a guest. In Gallifrey. To find her again was unsettling to the point where he simply dismissed his doubts for a case of déjà vu.

Coming back from his excursion down memory lane, he was surprised to find her silent and observing, from the bed, lost in a study not too dissimilar to his. With great meticulousness, and strangely, familiarity. There was no ease though. It was as if she was gauging a tool, pressing a surface, considering a language she had never talked, only read.

If indeed she had been at his father’s house and remembered, he could not tell by her expression. Something blinked behind her eyes, like attrition, before shutting down, and she cheerfully extended a hand in his direction, flouncing smiles and flutters around.

“River Song. Performer.”

He did not take her hand, refusing to play along.

“What do you perform, exactly?”

She combed her mass of hair back from her forehead, purling her lips.

“Where’s the fun in telling you that?”

He scrunched his face at that, guarded.

“I would not venture to say fun –considering this is not exactly a circus event.” She arched an eyebrow, challenging, and he closed his eyes promptly. “But that would help me to refrain from kicking you out of Amy’s trailer. Who are you?”

Her eyes widened.

“Dear God, you're hard work.” She loosened her posture, feigning exhaustion at his uncooperativeness. “Someone is really acting like a newbie here.”

“I am.” He squinted his eyes at her. “Do you work for Amy Pond?”

The woman jumped to her feet. Agile. There was something predatory to the flexing of her calves, the way she balanced her weight on her feet, how grounded she seemed, feet planted on the floor. Incredibly strong.

Stupidly dangerous. He was not a man to refuse a challenge.

“You’ve gone all bossy. Not that I mind.” He gulped audibly and her gaze dropped to his Adam’s apple, ruthless. “I do not work for anyone here, dear. We’re all here for the…”

“Fun. I know.” He lifted his brows, fighting back a smile.

She beamed, proud of herself, and wrapped tightly the kimono around her. Her chin lifted and she observed him from under her lids, attentive, very present. The image of her younger self, eyes wide, lips parted, somehow happier, somehow repulsive, kept superimposing with her face. Like a ghost. Or an echo. Something welling up, still out of his reach, far at the bottom of the pit where he had buried his childhood and Gallifrey and Victor. Kept in motion by smiles and lashes like leaves, fluttering, she was countering the memory waves with her stillness. Grounded. Immutable.

It seemed she could not have been back then in Gallifrey, while she was there in his blue caravan, against him.

Quite against him.

He jumped back, realising how close she had stepped.

“You’ve seen me before?” His voice was quivering with the knowledge she would leave him stranded, struggling with the enigma of her face, in Gallifrey, against the oak railing.

 “I’m sure you can do better than that.” The expression she passed on, for a split second, was dead cold.

“Look at the pair of you”, a brash voice shouted from outside. “Already squabbling like sharks trying to make babies. Hang on, scratch that.” Amy, naturally, galloped right inside, a little flushed, dragging a rather stunned Rory by the collar. She squeaked with joy, taking hold of the woman and Titus’ hands and shaking strenuously, unaware of the building crisis she had cut short.

He always had enjoyed building crises, they were like chess game.

“Docky, here’s Melody, sister in law and woman extraordinaire.” She turned to Titus and flashed him a smile. ”Let me guess, she introduced herself as my boss, Rita Afzal, or something like that? Never trust Melody, always lying.” Titus cast River a deadly glance and she raised an eyebrow in response.

A woman; two names, two faces, so far. _Game on._

“ _River_ Song?” He sneered at River, impertinent.

“Oh. Well. That’s different and a bit _true_.”Amy bowed her head to River who winked silently and the red-head continued, cheerfully. ”That’s actually her _stage_ name. You better remember it, because if you get lost, she’s in charge of you.”

River looked at him, teasingly and he frowned, mouthing his disagreement to Amy who ignored him.

“Don’t worry, she has her own tent, not very far from here. She doesn’t sleep here. I just wanted to make sure she was okay after her fainting spell.”

He looked at her, doubting anything, be it the Sun, could make the woman faint.

“Oh, please, don’t worry,” River jested. ”Just the heat of the performance.”

Rory, who had remained blissfully silent until then, chose this moment to evince alarm and started fussing as if his big infant sister had just fallen from her bike. The Doctor took the opportunity to pull Amy aside.

“Amy, I'm telling you now, that _woman_ is not dragging me into anything.” He did not even bother to wait until Rory and River had left to take their arguing outside and River threw her head back in disdain before stepping out.

“I cannot be held responsible for your well-being during this week. I do not have the time.” Amy stated, rearranging the order the Doctor had managed to bring to their home.

“You do have time for Rory.” Titus mumbled. “Always with the Rory.”

“All that I ask is that if you need help to go somewhere, and I assume you will want to go somewhere else than the _camping area_ , you take her as a guide, sort of. Don’t wander off.” She faced him, stepped closer and started playing with the collar of his shirt, worried, and he softened. “It can be a bit overwhelming, this place. Melody accepted, disgracefully. I trust her. _Please._ Rory doesn’t get to see her that often you know.”

He scratched the back of his head, pouting.

“Just so you two can shag.”

Amy rolled her eyes in response before murmuring. “No. So that I can work, Rory is here to help me with the photography logistics, he has to sand-proof my bags.”

“And I can’t?” It was practically a prayer in his mouth. He needed to know he was worthy of something, even if he had taken a month off from the shipyard, after Gallifrey had disappeared in flames.

“It's not one of those things you can fix like you fix your bowtie.” Her hand fell on his neck and she pinched her face. “You are here to unwind, Mr. Grumpy Face. Forget about Gallifrey.”

He blinked. They had been good friends as children, before he went away, partners in crime in all expeditions risky and unsupervised by adults. Of course, they had watched the stars form the top of the trees in his father’s garden, and nicked apple pies from the neighbours’ kitchen. Peter to her Wendy, he had dragged this neat little girl in the suburbs and forests. But when he had come back from Europe, she had changed, a lot. And he hadn’t.

Their relationship had shifted to the point where she could go on without him and miss him, but be _fine_. He could not stand it. He welcomed the addition of her husband, Rory, because it meant not being alone with Amy and her questions and keen eyes. Distance had taught him to fear her opinion, as well as crave her proximity, while it had considerably sharpened the woman’s eye. And he resented her for that.

Each time, the exhilaration of having her near, the distraction of their adventurous outings in the Mountains or on the coast had kept him from repairing their friendship; he didn’t know Amy as well as he should.

But clearly, she still did.

He shook himself out of his thoughts, grabbed Amy’s hand and tugged her towards the nearest seat. Postponing again. He lived between decisions set back to later days and lapses of memory, his mind always light-years from life.

“Okay.” His voice sounded as if someone had just pressed one key and elicited this particular noise from his trunk.

“You sure? You’ve never been the King of Okay, Docky.”

“And I never intend to be.” He laughed soundlessly. “I have been told this particular broodiness is greatly appreciated. Now tell me about that wonderful article of yours.”

They talked for long. And did not talk for even longer.

 

***

 

River had disappeared when Rory came out from the kitchen part of the trailer with dinner. Tacos-like things he named _pitas_ with raw vegetables and cold chicken. Along with a note from River explaining to him where to find her tent. He buried it his pocket.

“I should talk to her about her handwriting,” he overheard Rory whisper to Amy while handing her a plate. “It’s illegible. Proper nonsense.”

The feast was welcomed after the overheated afternoon and even more so meetings. Rory warned him several times about not letting anything drop on the floor, and despite Titus claiming that of course he had studied the beginner’s guide for the event before going, Amy gave him a complete presentation on how to survive in the Open Playa with goggles and a bottle. The heat, dryness and dust enveloping the temporary city were to be feared especially.

“Docky, I hope you took shorter shorts with you because it’s really hot there,” Amy teased him between mouthfuls of chicken.

“Mind you,” Rory observed. “He could go naked and pretend it is his art piece.”

“Oh, nice,” Amy nodded enthusiastically. “I must suggest that to Jack. An all-nude ballet.”

“Keep away from that man...” Rory gnarled.

Titus was fighting every bit of food to the pale flat bread and lifted his eyes to Amy.

“Who’s Jack?”

“Melody’s partner.” Amy answered. “You’ll see him at the performance.”

He gaped, flustered, oddly upset by the news River had a partner. She had seemed pretty flirty in the trailer, and the flirting was very much directed at him.

“What do you mean partner? Like partner, in a manner of speaking, or....”

Rory lifted a finger in his direction, eyebrows raised. “You actually need my permission to go anywhere near my sister. Be aware, I do have a screwdriver.”

“I told you all he needed was to _not_ even meet her properly,” Amy chuckled. “You’re _so_ her next toy boy.”

The orange he threw at Amy worked as a charm to relieve his unease. Until he had to run after it for half the street, cackling children on his trail, to catch the fruit, pushed by the treacherous wind and Black Rock City’s most unbreakable commandment: no trace.

 


	2. Chapter 2

He had no idea. He seriously had no idea.

He would not lie if he said he had thought the event was nothing more than a rave party, with more tents and bicycles. Vehicles were forbidden to move about in the Open Playa, unless they were an art piece and approved by the staff; the use of bicycles was allowed to go from one end to the other of the gigantic flat amphitheatre-like city.

It was in a clutter of bells and horn-like wind he made his first steps, or rather pedal strokes, into the gigantic Plaza. Heart of the temporary city, it was a piece of desert left bare, where the mastodons of art were displayed. Temples, sculptures, art installations, soaring from the ground like shards in the Earth crust. At the apex of the sun-dried circle, on the rim, lodged between the open space and the huddle of tents and trailers arranged in arched streets, rose the Burning Man on top of a closed arena, the Centre Camp Café. Ominous, ephemeral, eponymous. Like many art pieces in the course of the week, the dummy would be set on fire.

Committed to the flame, released, leaving no trace.

Like Gallifrey. Old houses burn sometimes.

Like Victor. His spiky, great hair. His pretty boyish face. His dark glasses and darker eyes. His stupid habit of shouting Allons-y whenever he felt like it.

Victor.

Brilliant, blazing child who disappeared without a trace, left him with a nickname only. Docky.

He felt he understood River’s reserve about the kind of performance she was providing. Mystery was needed, here. Mystery and an open-mind. People gave too much and he needed some sort of protection against this _Cour des Miracles_.

He felt gulped. The sheer amount of people within the city, of dancers, musicians, costumed strollers was stultifying. It was such of whirlwind of colours, sound, personalities, but against the naked, raw background of the desert. He was being scrubbed clean inside, only to be filled with sensations only.

He immediately gave in; it was something he could do particularly well; give in to the atmosphere, not necessarily blend in, but slipped between and still be welcomed.

He was blessed by a priestess and photographed on top of a gigantic replica of the Mona Lisa. He got lost into a cloth labyrinth and listened to a very suggestive song about the polarity of the neutron flow and jelly babies. He was offered strange squishy blue things that tasted like heaven and stung like pebbles and helped an acrobat get back into his stilts after having taught him how to play the triangle.

River had been right.

A bit stunned, and beginning to suspect he would be drunk on emotions the evening gone, he let Dorium, from a champagne bar, and Donna, from the children’s corner, lead him to watch the sun set. He was surprised at how quickly the people around were attracted to each other, their ease. Sharing was a prerequisite of enjoyment at Black Rock City, Donna had ceremoniously stated before brutishly seizing his water bottle and ordering him to drink a little more often if he did not want to “drop dried and withered on the floor for every Burners to stampede and store away with their garbage.”

He burst out of laughter as the sun was disappearing slowly behind the horizon, immense. On the outer brink of Black Rock City, they stood, surrounded by hundreds other people, to witness and be united over a piece of art unknown to man’s hands. He breathed in deeply. Dizzy and beginning to feel the cold bite of the desert at night.

Jet-lagged, he needed someone, an anchor, anything, or he would not last the night.

Or he would be drunk on people, and faces, and sensations, and the blasted wind and sand getting everywhere. Under his skin. In his bottle. In the food that was offered and the sculptures he was feeling under his palm.

 

***

 

He saw River later that night. He had been dragged by Donna into a stupefying sound and laser attraction that left him on his knees and hands, crying under the rush of adrenaline. He had gotten up and tripped until the nearest tent only to find her sitting on a trunk, dazzled. Not by his presence though. Her cheeks were bright orange under the combined action of sweat and light. She was wrapped in a loose white robe, holding to her breasts by magic.

“What are you doing here?” He croaked before lurching to the floor and sitting cross-legged.

She let go of an infuriated sigh before plucking and dropping one by one the pins in her hair on the bench. The curls were springing out, mesmerising, and the face of another Melody, a phantom Melody he had not caught up with yet, bounded in to his memory before zooming out.

“Seriously. Everytime?” She grunted, peeved. “You know, supposing I really was not _exactly_ where I am supposed to be, I’d be at least intelligent enough not to be caught lounging.”

“And half-dressed,“ he observed gesturing at her incomprehensible wrapping.

“But I haven’t changed, that’s why. It’s my costume.” Examining herself, she picked one strap hanging below her breast, dismally, and he almost could see the whole garment collapse. “It’s been rather... disturbed. Jack went a bit overboard and I was foolish enough to follow him in his improvisation.”

He beamed, sliding a tongue on his teeth, before clucking.

“You’re a dancer.” It came out as far more gloating than he wanted but her zaftig smirk as she answered was simply delicatessen.

“You could run the gamut from Acrobat to Zither player before you guess what I do, pretty boy.”

She bared her upper teeth on the ‘pretty’ and he squirmed internally. Fair game.

“Is zither playing that physically demanding, Miss Song?”

“The way I play my zither?” The top of her costume fell to her waist, revealing a flesh sport bra, which he was trying his best not to notice. The corkscrews of her hair fizzing. The skin lit with exertion. The dust drawing patterns of pull and drag on her shoulders. “Definitely.”

 _She’s a dancer alright_ , he noted, briefly closing his eyes. He had thought finding her would bring him grounding, the easy distraction of banter and annoyance. Instead he found her sidetracking his memory, launching his mooring into space, excavating his desire.

“I’d be delighted to see that performance.” He looked up to her face, eager to match her word for word.

“Really? It’s all in the music produced though.” She wriggled out of her dress, still sitting, with matching boxers. Her position making her hips flare like a fan. He gulped. “I’m quite the musician”, she breathed, and dove sideways, exposing the length of her body to fish a green tunic she slipped on. Words found a way back to his mouth at last.

“And how does it sound like when you play the zither?”

“Bless.” She jumped to her feet, gathering the wrinkled dress and her pins to stuff in a large leather bag. “With the lines you throw, I could move on to a rather incredible one about the bass viol timbre, but I might get overexcited over instruments. And I am in no condition to do so.”

“Fair enough,” he bent his head. “I still don’t know what you performed _exactly_ tonight. But I know you probably need a drink.”

Flinging the bag across her shoulder, she held out a hand for him to get up. He complied, though the phantom nudging his mind shied away the moment he felt her silky touch. Incredibly strong, still.

Her stomach growled quite loudly and she grimaced.

“Titus dear, I might need a bite first.”

She retrieved from her bag a small container, crammed with what seemed like... He looked up, expectantly.

“Jammie Dodgers? You brought Jammie Dodgers?”

“I _cooked_ Jammie Dodgers.” She stuffed her mouth and he made a face.

“Do you dance?” She asked out of the blue, between bites, and he looked quizzically at her.

“I do the questioning about dance usually.”

She tilted her head and shot him a cheeky smile.

“You’ve noticed? I was talking about informal dancing though. There is a party near the Café.”

“Are we going out? I thought you said-”

“Course we are. “ She widened her eyes, looped her biscuit arm in his and led him outside the tent. “And I do not walk up on stage before tomorrow 11:00. So, first night? Where do you want to start?”

He let himself be led around by the nose in the Café where the speakers were blasting. It was unsettling, a woman acknowledging this shamelessly her intention to charm him. Just like a shark, in a dress.

He did not know, between his mind and River’s hips, which swayed the most that night.

She danced as if her life depended on it and he followed, desperately. Each time her hips brushed against his, he felt he was grazing the edge of a saw. He was cut and pushed and fitted against her, her personal space, her breathing. She was firing within the pulsating crowd, dancing with an abandon he thought could be obtained with alcohol only. Or regret.

That made them a matching pair.

He realised he enjoyed being around her, even when he was not the centre of her attention. Even when she was retrieved in herself, while dancing. It was a wild offering to grief and mourning, he thought. It was the way he would have danced after he received the news his childhood home had burnt to ashes, after he signed the paper to sell Gallifrey, after he buried his father, after Victor left.

They got lost against each other. Quite against. In breaths exhaled over another’s shoulder. In syncopated rhythm that would gash his head in the morning. And sometime in the middle of the night, she opened up; it was brief and strangely contained. She had her arms around his neck and was swaying, when suddenly she closed her eyes and he took her in. As if she had slipped and balanced herself on him. Some things amazing happened that night, while she was dancing and he was gesticulating.

Something sobering happened that night also. River had gone out, minutes before to breathe a little. He did not want to leave, at the heart of excitement as he was. He was talking to Vastra, a stunning fire-eater, whose body was covered in tattoos, and eyeing with amusement her very reserved attempts at seducing a plucky brunette named Jenny, when it was obvious Jenny was ogling her to her heart’s content.

River zigzagged in as if on the verge of collapse, before stumbling out of the Café again. Titus left Vastra with Jenny and followed. He found River on the floor, sat against a bare stage, elbows on her knees. He edged close without sitting, not trusting his limbs to lower him to the ground without maiming her. Balancing on his feet, crouched, he sought her face. She dodged his hand and let out a disheartened breath.

Her knuckles were dirty. He could not see well in the dark, but it looked damp, glistening, uneven. He captured her left hand, felt the sticky and warm liquid, and blinked.

“River, do you have blood on your hands?”

She chortled, head leaning on the stage, eyes hooded. Under the dim light coming from the stars, she looked like a statue and wore the tragically unguarded expression to match.

“Always.”

He squeezed harder.

“River, what have you done?”

From across the street he heard a commotion. Voices and ruffles of feet, of things, of metal and wood on the ground. He stood up, but the moment he decided to get closer to the source of the noise, he felt River’s hand in his.

“What is it?” He looked down.

Pale-faced, guilt turned inwards, no more mermaid, but ship wrecked. She was asking him, wordlessly, to trust her, when he had no reason to. To trust him for an unknown he was afraid to uncover and that she seemed relieved to let go of.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “But that's when everything changes.”

His question died on his lips when he heard the shouting coming from the other end of the plaza. His frame tensed. A dozen of person was arguing. At the centre of the pack, someone was shaking head, a woman, holding what seemed like, and he nearly had a heart attack when he realised, a foot. Instinctively he reached down to River, brought her up to his side, and enclosed her bloodied hands in the crook of his elbow, hiding them. As the group passed near, he noticed the calm of the woman holding the foot, in wood probably. She cast a quick, pointed glance at River, but walked away without a word, while the crowd around her was spewing out “crime” and “dismantling” and “gust of wind”.

Titus and River crept silently to where they were coming from. Between two themed camps were standing the structures of Mrs. K. He had seen her work while he had been visiting River earlier. Rather unsettling piece, her work was; life-size articulated dolls in wood.

Damaged.

Those were scarred, crippled, maimed creatures, all the more grim that they were remarkably life-like. They were maintained from the assaults of the wind by strong metallic structures. And one was obviously empty. The attaches to where the arms and waist of the doll should have been were torn. And he shuddered when thinking of the violence required to tear apart a wooden doll. The ground was remarkably clear of shards and body parts which seemed to indicate someone had cleared the scene –or the wind. Blasted wind.

He felt the air, cool and dry, devoid of storm. But the music coming from the party, not so far, could not cover the loud, rhythmical flapping of the tents around them. The wind was blowing, as ever.

The carved wood was so light after all.

Beside him, River’s eyes were glazing a little more. She seemed lost to her thoughts, but aware enough of the situation to fiercely avoid meeting his eyes or the sculptures. The blood on her hands had dried up, exposing a nicked and dented relief. She had fidgeted, somehow, with a strand of hair and left it tainted and caked. Solidified.

He did not need any word from her.

A quick sweep and an attentive watch of River’s face lead him where she had concealed the body, in a nearby tent, in a box. He opened the latch, and could not repress a shiver. The trunk was stuffed with the doll, dismembered. He could see the arms and the foot, the waist burst open by River’s attempt to free it from the metallic base. The hands were stained with River’s blood. His breath hitched in his throat when he disentangled from the mass of limbs and cables the head of the doll.

It was River’s.

A rigid version of River, in bits and joints, was fitted in there.

He did not ask, he simply had to look at River.

River was slumped against the nearest hard surface, eyes set to his hands on the box. Wood on wood. There was something terribly disturbing about her quietness. As if she was completely out of control. As is she was watching herself fall. And could not do a thing about it.

This was the Melody from Gallifrey. He swallowed hard. He could see his father’s face beside. But Melody was not happy. She had wind in her hair.

The echoed souvenir alone settled his mind.

He could hear the group coming back with the Rangers to inspect the scene of the crime across the cloth. He kept his eyes trained on her lifeless form until she stiffened and looked up, at last, resolved.

Titus and River worked silently to extract the body and skittered in the darkness.

But no one slept at Black Rock City. They trudged together, hand in hand, and he nearly lost his senses when he took the dummy’s hand instead of hers. The art pieces in the distant were like titans running towards them, accomplice. They hid the body parts in a colossal structure, supposedly depicting the downfall of humanity in the form of a gigantic spine made of various objects, some in wood.

The sculpture was long, forcing them to run and brush past each other frequently. At some point, he caught her arm and clasped, lightly, briefly. She trembled, not seeing him, and went on with their crazed chase in the dark.

They parted without a word. He was exhausted with feelings. The sand eddying swallowed her, not even whole. But little by little.

Her feet. Her dress. Her crazy head. 


	3. Chapter 3

In the morning, he woke up embezzled from his night. Amy and Rory seemed particularly cuddly and non-talkative over breakfast, leaving him alone with thoughts too flecked and body parts too many.

River did not come and find him. She was supposed to be one step ahead, his bespoke Dante, with curls and gusto.

Just before he left, Rory gave him a note, looking very confused and mumbling “Still not getting it”. It was from River. A simple ‘thank you’. And his heart constricted.

Lead astray, and jumpy, he spent the first part of the day working on one artistic installation with other volunteers. The atmosphere was warm and welcoming, and his mind, axed, leapt from faces to faces as on buoys. Getting high on people.

He doubted very much desecrating sculptures was part of the tradition.

“Calvin? As in... I don’t even know what kind of name is that?” He chuffed, trying to read correctly the instructions to make the piece of wood fit where it was supposed to. Building house was not like building boats, he whistled.

“I don’t ask you what kind of chin is that?” The brunette scoffed back, picking another piece. “Give me the hammer and shut up.”

She fiddled a bit around the piece, grabbed the hammer and held it in the air, lips puckered.

“Calvin, as in Clara always wins.”

“Yes, but you are called Calvin, not Calwin.” He asked, genuinely confused. “What happened?”

“My education. I was very young and could not pronounce my /v/ correctly.”

He shrugged, accepting the explication, before suspending his movement, the screwdriver in the air.

“Wait, wait, wait... You came up with your nickname when you were a child?”

“Look who’s talking, Docky!”

“Calvin, Calwin,” he tried.”Tomato, tomahto, that’s ridiculous!”

She audibly slammed down her hammer on the table and he jumped on the spot.

“Oi! How do you think you fared with words like ‘balaclava’ or ‘thistledown’ when you were the same age?”

“Well, that’s it. I just didn’t,” he countered. “What kind of a child would use ‘balaclava’? Although, I do admit balaclavas are cool. Just not easy on the tongue when you are an infant.”

“I’m very clever,” Calvin snapped back at him.

“You’re very talkative,” shouted Wilfred, the man supervising the building site. ”We actually have a wooden house on wheels to build.”

“She started with her impossible name.” Titus pointed at Clara, who held a fist in his face.

“Well, that’s the way the world wags and please could you assemble those planks together,” Wilfred leered. “I feel like they are deciding on the wallpaper for the house we have not finished building yet.”

“But I thought you said no wallpaper because the glue would...” Came the upset voice of Craig. From the moment Wilfred directed his glare at him, it died to be replaced by a plaintive squeak and a saw.

Wilf went back to his sandpaper, mumbling between his teeth, while the team of volunteers kept quiet. The sound of hammers and saw had resumed and only Wilfred bad mood could be heard:

“Honestly I feel like I’m in charge of the kindergarten.”

By the end of the morning, the atmosphere had considerably warmed and Wilfred was offering coffee to Craig and Clara, to discuss, of all things, kids. It seemed Calvin was a junior organizer in her home town which happened to be, well, miles away from where Craig and Wilfred lived but that did not seem to matter.

As he was picking up his things on the floor and wrapping his scarf round his face to be protected from the sand bursts, he felt a small hand pressed on his back. He turned, expecting to find Calvin ready to give him the punch she had been promising for ages, only to find River, shaking an amber liquid before his face.

She was afraid and she hadn’t run. Elation washed over him.

“This early?” He crooked a teasing smile.

“It’s tea, you idiot,” she whispered, apologetically.

“And I will carry on sounding silly but tea? With this temperature?”

“There is nothing wrong with tea by this temperature.”

He opened his arms before him, sheepishly grandiose.

“I forgot. You are a queen of the desert.”

They were fools and they knew it. Titus kept looking behind and snivelling each time they caught sight of a Ranger. Progressively, River’s presence and silence streamlined his thoughts to a single, grounded shard. He could not tell whether it was lying or _aperitif._ But he loved it and followed her, again.

Their feet led them on an idle stroll through the crowd of bicycles and jugglers, settling at a deserted theme camp furnished with cushions.

“What happened, last night? Surely you know better than destroying other’s artist work. It was creepy of her to do one of you, especially, if she didn’t ask your permission and worked all alone in the gloomy darkness of her workshop, but still.”

“I find the idea of a doll-replica of myself, and rotten, and manipulated, I find it upsetting.”

She would not look at him directly, always wandering and skipping from one stroller to another.

“You blew up a piece of art because you were upset? It _must_ have been a bit of a jumble.”

The moment she decided she could bear to look at him again she kept casting sharp glance to him. She seemed genuinely upset by the way he was taking the situation. And he dared not probe further.

“It was not. A jumble. She had just installed it and removed the veil, when I found it. It seemed all very evident. I thought ‘Down to business’ and the deed was done. Even if...” She looked down as her hands, covered in gauze. “I did not expect it to be so resilient. She works on tender wood, you know, Mrs. K. It’s almost like a taut muscle. But it would not break. I could not tear it.”

And again, he did not need to ask more than that. He felt he had a companion in grief. Even if the source of her grief was unknown to him.

He had maimed and torn his dad from his base, because he needed to mourn his brother’s abandonment, and that, eventually, had killed his father.

A statue mutilated, he could understand.

He had a feeling Mrs. K. had known it was River’s doing and had kept silent. Was it an old rivalry? Artistic differences? Mrs. K. was not much older than River.

When she closed her eyes, breathing deeper, he took her hand and she did not let go. The way her lips were parted, her nostrils widened, the tightening of her jaw, batted the memory of the other face, from Galiffrey right into his mind and he blanked.

They stayed, barely there, but together.

He knew he was lost to Victor at the moment. He accepted it because she was lost as well, wrapped between her memories.

After a while they headed back to the caravan for a snack, they got a lift on wind-operated machine by a striking moustachioed Welch man named Strax.

The wind blew strong this afternoon, washing the Plaza from most people, and leaving them to entertain themselves in the caravan. They spent their time exchanging tiny glances, guilty, yes, but he found an odd comfort in being this close to someone after an offense. When Rory flicked through the program and mentioned the replica of Wall Street would probably still be burnt that night, they had one look for each other.

Goggles and scarves on, racing on their bicycles, they took advantage of the weather to retrieve the scattered body and arranged the different parts to fit in the Wall Street structure. Avoiding the more brave visitors was easy compared to finding a spot high and large enough to conceal an arm.

Before fitting the head, under a podium, his fingers skimmed over the finely carved face, the swell of her lips, the crest of her ears. As his thumb was pressing the waves and interlaces masquerading as her hair, he pricked himself on a shard.

 

***

 

She had disappeared by the time he left the cardboard building. In a cloud of sand.

But she had waited for him.

He was surprised to find her tent opened, to him, absorbed in a meditation of some sort, or stretching exercise. Silent, she was turned inwards, attentive to her body.

“Hello again,” he piped, shaking at the mercy of the windy onslaughts, postponing his breaching of her boundaries. At first, he thought she had not heard him. There was something in her lap, a letter or a note.

“You are funny like that.” She had not lifted her eyes on him, yet he assumed it was directed at him. He did not move from his spot outside.

“It’s smaller,” he simply stated.

She shot him a quizzical look and he went on to clarify.

“Your tent. I imagined it would be bigger.”

“Don’t worry, it’s bigger on the inside.”She waved a hand as a way of inviting him. “Do come in. It gives me a sense of adventure, travel, Petra temples and dust.” She flashed a personal smile, briefly, meant for her only and he relaxed. “I feel like an explorer or an archaeologist.”

He was relishing in the easiness of the banter, but her features had hardened straight after. He felt a pang in the chest when it reminded him of the concentration of performers about to step on stage. He wondered what he could have said, if it had something to do with the ragged wood doll, if the Rangers had come to ask her questions.

Nothing was left behind, though. Their partnership in crimes seemed to work better than their blooming friendship. He didn’t dare mention Mrs. K. He entered the tent completely and sat before her, zipping the door behind him. Her feet were naked rough. He marvelled at how small they were, how worn, patched with calluses at the sole.

“A body is an instrument.” She was putting something aside, a book, blue, he thought, and folded her hands in her lap. The note had disappeared. “I train it, I condition it.”

She was attempting to tell him something, obviously struggled to find the words. He decided not to push. Her composure before the statues was telling him the toll on her would be heavy. From the back of his mind, the other Melody, long lost, was calling, tireless. Somehow linked to this mess she had gotten them into.

“River, I must ask you-“

She dismissively shook her head.

“It’s all about control,” she confessed, half heartedly, as if she felt he _needed_ to hear it.

He thought it was all about _destruction_ , rather, about leaving no traces, even in her own heart. He would not be surprised if he had found her erasing herself from his memory.

It seemed the kind of magic River would perform.

Consequently, his mind went wildfire, when she crept to him and leaned in, to drop a kiss on the left fold of his lips. Precisely and commanding. Leaving traces. He blinked hard, not flexing a muscle, while she was so very close.

“That’s new. Is it part of your training? Am I your conditioning now?”

She wobbled her head again, more slowly this time, and he marvelled at how easy it was for him to push aside everything he didn’t know about her. But ought to.

“You were right about one thing, I am the bloody Queen. I rule. Solely.”

He just had the time to note she was still in the process of slow crashing triggered by the event of the previous night, before her mouth came crashing into his and he forgot.

He took her in, soft lips and clever tongue, his hand going instinctively to her hair, while she was climbing in his lap and straddling him. His hand snuck under her sweater, finding the skin warm and supple. He began stroking and nudging, constantly moving between the muscles of her back and her taut stomach, amazed at the way she seemed to roll under his touch. She was definitely a dancer.

At the moment, busy kneading the base of his neck and scalp, and the other end of his trunk, working against him with such expert rhythm, he had to tear her away from him. She looked at him, befuddled, and he answered by dropping a kiss to her lips and pulling out his shirt over his head. With a purr, she imitated him, flinging the clothes across the tent which produced a dull thump in response.

She pushed him up, biting his lower lip with a guttural sound that resonated within his teeth. Surprised by her strength, he began toppling on his back, only to realise they were in a tiny tent not made for such displays. The moment his body hit the entry cloth, the door zipped open and he ended up half outside, looking at the purple sky, and a zip uncomfortably grazing his lower back. River half leapt out of the tent, hands on each side of his frame, and dropped a kiss on his brow.

“You idiot.”

“Is there a lock on this tent?” He was genuinely alarmed. “Anybody could walk in.”

“Why, do you plan to do that often? It’s impressively cute, I give you that. You look like a hedgehog rolled on his back,” she cooed, patting his bare chest and he had half a mind to throw her the wooden feet lurking in a corner.

“No, but,” he protested as she dragged him back to the tent, closing a first door he had not noticed before, then the second, while still dropping small kisses long his jaw. The fabric of the tent was red and he was suddenly struck at how surreal she seemed thus painted, afire.

He panicked slightly when he remembered her wooden counterpart was probably consumed as they were kissing. The stunning touch of the wooden, cold, minute hand suddenly replacing her fingers on his lower abdomen. His breath hitched, hearing no wind, but the crackling of fire and the uproar of the crowd building in the distance.

“Can’t you hear?”

She was warm, dragging him up with her, and he could not do a thing about that. She handled him expertly, in control, leading. But ablaze, fire-eater or blacksmith. And he could not tell who was marking whom. He needed to bite and scratch, only to assure she was flesh and bones, not wood and hollows.

She was all strength and control, extremely sensitive, extremely confident with him. Guiding and giving in constantly. But binding also. In every bite, or kiss, or pressing, he felt dangerously wired to her. He would not trust his nerve-endings with the silkiness of her bonds.

Guiding him higher and higher, she kept talking, in a hoarse, hushed voice. Like an enchantment.

He blacked-out.

It was dark outside and the wind had started again when he mumbled out of his daze, feeling River huddled by his side. Her nipples were hard, brushing his arm, with each breath. Muscles relaxed and long and thick, she was opened and soft. He reached out for her arm, skimming over the flesh and downy hairs there – _thistledown_ , he chuckled and she smiled instinctively. Up to the protruding veins on her forearm, and stopped at the wounded, raw hands. She cracked a smile, tightly, before gazing at him, dispassionate. And that very same quietness filled him with wonder because it allowed him to witness a pure form of affection. And strangely, forgiveness.

She frowned, heaved a sigh and cuddled closer, not looking at him.

“And the day you will have no control over that anymore?” His voice was a faint. Each word an attempt at deceiving the wind. “What will you do with your instrument?”

She winced and he held her tight.

“Will you let me carry you?”


	4. Chapter 4

He had gotten up late to an empty tent and a small note reading “Breakfast’s in the blue box. x”. He had searched her of course, the whole morning, throughout the camp, only to get lost and kicked into his senses by Calvin. She was waiting in line at Arctica to get some ice, punching him in the arm when he ignored her, moping.

He would not find River. Or rather, River would be found exactly when she intended to be found. She had other things to do than nurse his languor. She had been avoiding him, or working on covering her traces maybe. He think he saw her dressed as a volunteer fire-fighter scavenging the ashes of Wall Street. Ensuring the doll had burnt entirely.

He got back to the blue caravan, where he found Rory and Amy arguing over a jammed flash.

“That, I can fix.” He murmured sneaking past Amy. In a second, she was tugging at him by the collar, shoving his face in the mechanism.

“Then, do it, you idiot.”

Needless to say his plans for the morning had been changed and he fixed approximately everything there was to fix in Amy’s trailer. 

Just before midday as he was lying, exhausted, under the shade, River walked in his field of vision, carrying a container to the trailer. She sat on the lower steps of the doorway and slipped into a reflective position, hand on her brow. As he was making up his mind to walk up to her, somewhat disturbed by his own hesitation, she rose to her feet and began roaming.

He could not understand the patterns and circles she was tracing on the ground with her feet. She kept changing direction and turning and spinning and hopping, but with extreme idleness, leaving him wondering if she had not a bad case of sunstroke. After a while he noticed she was shaking her head from time to time and finally came to the conclusion she was beating time and thus, very likely, rehearsing. He had yet to see her dance and was almost disappointed to witness this hastened, loose repetition of steps and times.

Suddenly, she halted. Her lifted hand fell to her side, her frame went slack. The atmosphere around seemed to fizzle. The low buzz of a generator buzzing in the distance. A gust of wind brought with him a smell, unique, torn away from his childhood. Fresh, tangible, earthy.

Petrichor.

He nearly choked on it. The faintness of it suddenly asphyxiating.

She caught it too.

His family had been so excited to see Victor after such a long time that his mother had completely forgotten to dust the large table before the windows in the parlour. The rain was falling thick since midday and only curtailed for Victor’s arrival. He rang the bell outside, Titus ran down the stairs, his father closed hastily the windows and trotted up to the door. When Victor and the young woman with him stepped into the hall, the windows burst open, splaying the antique table and artefacts with droplets and blowing high the curls around Melody’s face.

Petrichor. The smell of dust after rain. And Melody.

That’s why he had associated the face with tales of mermaids. She had enchanted his brother.

A night of late august, more than ten years from then, Titus had met Victor’s fiancée, Melody.

She had not stayed and by the time Titus had ran up and down the stairs to bring to his brother the latest ship model he had built, Melody had excused herself for a meeting. She had just dropped by to meet Victor’s family.

Melody, in Gallifrey, long ago. Melody and Victor, happy.

“It’s not as Melody Williams I should know you, is it? Or even River Song.”

She jumped when she heard his voice, but looked at him directly, having breathed in the air.

“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.”

He had not budged from his seat and she stood erect as the hand of a sundial, marking the right time, at last.

“I’m assuming there’s a reason.” His voice was low and calm. “Do you know…”

“Don’t ask. Please. That’s a question I can’t answer.”

“I don’t want to know where he is.” His book closed with a harsh snap and dropped to the ground. “I was about to ask why it happened and why?”

“Do you really think I came here to discuss him with you?” Composed, even after what should have been a dreaded exposal.

“No. But I think you came here to do exactly what you said you were doing: perform. For me especially.” He retrieved the book to put it in a weighed down box beside the chair. Her eyes were following his movements, with great attention. “You know I was coming and that’s why Rory reacted so strangely in the car.”

“I suspected you were the same Titus Lambert. That’s all. Rory doesn’t know.”

He got up, swaggering a bit, with a frustrated wiggle of the head. The wind was creating impossible little balls of sand, and in her white dress, her restraint divine, she looked like an elementary goddess.

“Well, nobody does apparently.”

She took a step closer to him, cautious.

“What has the master of Gallifrey told you about me? That I was a siren who drove him into despair and disappeared when he needed me most, using him to get where I wanted to go? You know better than that.”

He looked at her askance.

“You said it, he didn’t. He simply mentioned you were a kind of woman he was ready to blow his brains out for. His words. But Victor has never been a man of passion.”

“He is also very much his own. If your father could not control him, how could I?”

“You don’t need control when you have that knowledge over him. You knew him better than his father. Better than me.”

“Oh, no.” She was breathing in his face, jaws tightening. He gritted his teeth and they seemed for a brief moment to meet halfway on this tension.”You do. You know, deep down, what happened to him. You’ve been to the same places. That’s what you have been trying very hard to do, follow him.” She raised a hand to his cheek, not touching, her fingers twitching just across his cheekbones. “For a very long time now.” Her arm dropped to her side and her head to her chest.

He closed his eyes, a hard knot banging the back of his throat with each attempt at swallowing.

“Well, here we are, at last.” She extended her arm, palm opened, in a gesture demanding more than a handshake. “Melody Williams, the woman who married Victor Lambert. “

“His wife?” This was unexpected. This was also incredibly wrong. He turned on the spot, rubbed a hand across his face, inched toward her before finally turning his back to her and grimacing.

“Your father didn’t need to know about it.” Her voice was feeble in the racket the wind was playing. A loose rope somewhere flapped against a car’s roof. “We were the only ones harmed in the separation. And don’t make me lie to you.”

“It seems there is an awful lot of things we Lambert don’t need to know when you are around.”

They stood there in silence, for an eternity it seemed, hardly paying attention to the dust gathering around.

He was alone in his betrayal, and he could not understand how or why he had let her in.

Or rather he could pinpoint precisely the moment he had lost foot. The notes. They were written in Gallifreyan. The secret language his brother and he had mastered when they were still living under the same roof. At Gallifrey.

That’s why Rory had blamed River’s handwriting. It was even English. He was so used to the language, being such a huge part of his formative years.

All their letters had been written in Gallifreyan, from Europe until the day Victor had disappeared. And even after, he had spent long evenings rereading their exchanges, the snappy, fun-loving words of his brother leaving with the impression he had never disappeared.

And Victor had taught Melody.

He blinked back a tear and turned his head away, and knitted his brows at the amount of dust and sand then billowing in the air.

He could make out, in the distance the dangling silhouettes of Amy and Rory, probably coming back from Arctica for ice. He tugged at River’s elbow, hurrying her between the tents and parked vehicles. He would not face them.

Yet he wasn’t done with her. He needed more answers.

“You must have come after him. What happened?”

River was dodging his questions, and he was losing patience. The sculptures immutable, the tents like temples, the desert beyond, the sky above were blending, a cloth of white scaffolding around. He tripped on words, stuttering and soon shouting at her. She remained impassive, not even escaping but walking with him always.

She had a glance, pleading, and he immediately froze. It made sense. Only someone as proud as Victor would come with such twisted, destructing guard. No trace left. He should have been warned.

“God, you embarrass me,” he spat. “You didn’t want me to know you went after him, you searched for him? You were there when he, what, committed suicide? You can’t be that proud, can you?”

She faced him and held her chin high, tightening a sweater around her.

“A performance indeed. And I just fell for it.” He was reeling, his arms jerking around wildly, a bit like River had danced, the other night. “Is there someone somewhere who has not been assimilated by my brother and screwed by him? Christ!”

River glanced around, shifted her weight on her feet. Concern was altering her features.

“He was a good man, in spite of himself. We should head back.”

“ _Was_ a good man, there?” Titus wailed and River faltered. “No, that's not the point. He just left us. Everyone, whether he got bored or did it because he thought he was hurting us, does not matter. He went away and it’s high time he dies, I tell you that.”

River’s hands went forth, seeking him, trying to calm him down. He kept on walking in circles, spitting.

“And don’t say I hate him because I don’t. I admired him. I admired his achievements, his charm, even the moments when he was an utter dick to anyone disagreeing with him, I admired him. He was eighteen years older than me and I adored him and he adored me.” He kicked the air.”And for years, I wanted to be him. Except I couldn’t because I was too busy mourning him and sucking the life right out of my father. I do not even know what went wrong with him, what he did to consider he was unworthy of us, to the point of cutting us off.” He stopped, hands on the hips and let out a bitter laughter.  “Oh, look, I'm angry. That's new. I'm really not sure what's going to happen now.”

She was stroking his chest, feather-light, and the wind was blowing her faceless, hair in disarray.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“No, you are not.” He would have wanted to pull back, tear away from her and walk far from this nightmare of inexplicable burnt dolls and ghost brother. Yet his rage had burst and died like a soufflé. Leaving him hollowed and useless. “When I first met you I felt I could admire you the way I did admire Victor. I eventually did. You were so like him. The way you dealt with me. But you are really not. You care a lot more than he would have and I hate it. Caring is not an advantage. Had you not run after him, he would have found his way back, immediately. But, you gave in too much, too soon, and he fled. And never turned back and now I will never rest.”

He saw a glimmert on their right, something far, and River’s head jerked up from his chest, eye ablaze. Her knuckles were clenched like teeth on her palm, white on his now grey tee-shirt.

“Are you quite finished?”

“Really? I _need_ to know,” he barked.

“I’m surprised you forgot so easily how he was with everybody.” River was nearly shouting. The wind had suddenly began to low madly. “Charming. Yes. Irresistible. Yes. And intelligent and kind at that. But he had control issues.”

“Trust issues,” he corrected, snarling just before her face.

“In his case, the same. He thought he could not trust anyone, so he ended up deciding for them.” Her contained rage was all the more hurting than he knew was she was claiming to be true.

“We’ve all done that,” he breathed, menacing.

“At Gallifrey, maybe,” she bit back, the slightest tension in her brow.

“So that’s it. You could not stand being his pawn, gave him a good talk off and he left? That’s not good enough for me.”

“He did not deserve to die,” she shouted.

Titus fell silent. She did know after all.

The wind squalling was the only thing he could hear and a tiny voice deep inside told him he should have paid more attention to that detail. But River’s eyes had a glaze completely new, one of hurt, and ferociousness. He had witnessed it only once, when he had confronted his father about Victor. Breaking his heart and eventually his life. Leaving the reading room, he had caught a glimpse of his own face, distorted, victorious. A Lambert’s face after his first demonstration of power.

A poor smile stretched her dried lips, hair madly flapping her face.

”We were together at Gallifrey. Your father used to let us the house for a week in November, while you were in Europe. Victor had always thought he could save the world. He did. From the wrong people. “

He paled. The image flashed before his eyes, brittle, sharp. River’s face laughing, above him.

And in the back of her tent. A package.

”Why was there a wooden foot in your tent, River?”

She shrugged a shiver away, holding her scarf to her face to breathe more easily under the assaults of the wind. Titus was trembling.

“There was a box, near his bed, on the vanity, aligned with his heart. It was your grandfather’s gun. It was an old gun, and still loaded. A tickle or a kiss could have triggered it. Victor enjoyed the idea. Except many people were hurt feeding his confidence. People who loved him always came back to him. Even hurt and maimed. And when these people are a mob… ”

“River, do you have anything to do with this organisation that kept harassing my father about Gallifrey after Victor had...”

“The Silence is not an organisation. It is a religious order, or movement,” she started reciting, barely conscious. “Their core belief is that they shall give this age the gift of equality. And when everything is leveled out, when the impossible has come to earth and the moon is in our hands -- then, perhaps, the world will be truly transformed, then perhaps there will be no more death and men will be happy. And Gallifrey was a root of inequality. The place of birth of a false god.”

“What!” He simply cried. “This is utter-“, but another burst of wind choked him and he glanced around, suddenly paying attention to their surroundings.

Titus was starting to realise the buzzing in his ear was not caused by River’s drawn expression, or the painful way she was hugging her chest. Or the knowledge he was beginning to know exactly what happened to Victor. This was not any storm.

River, before him, rigid, blinked, as if snapping out of a trance.

“Let’s say I was caught in between,” she moaned.

Titus was not paying attention to her.

White-out. Sand storm. How could they have ignored it? Wasn’t River supposed to check the weather broadcast every morning?

He had been so frustrated with River, she had been too engrossed in shunning him, that they had walked right to the walk in area and beyond, completely isolated, devoid of vehicle or shelter.

And the wind had come.

They had heard it yapping high above and the clouds were stretched like silky shreds, rolling. Suddenly the wind had dropped, with him the sand rising in clouds like blocks before them.

The horizon disappeared.  The visibility was nil in this part of the camp trodden by foot only.

They sunk to their knees, River wrapping her arms around him to keep him from gesticulating. He was panicking; he could feel the air and sand blocking his respiratory tract. Her hands fiddled with the scarf around his neck.

And she pulled it tight.

He let out a choked cry, unable to call her name.

He heard her whimper. Or was it the wind?

“I won’t say that I don’t have a choice. Because I have. And this is not an easy one. I was trained and conditioned for one thing. And it seemed you torn everything apart.”

He saw her eyes opening wide above the tissue covering her mouth. He saw her lips being torn under her teeth and tears were welling up in her eyes. He saw something dark and small, tumbled and torn to shreds against the ground. And silhouettes standing.

But he could not hear his voice, or even his panic soaring inside. All he could hear was the wind bellowing at them. He held a hand out to her to restore the severed contact, to insure she had not been just a mirage from his childhood.

His hands battled the air, finally found her neck and for a brief instant he felt nothing but sand. He could not get to her skin.

She was all mineral.

She arched against him to keep away, violently shoving his face against the ground and saddling his back, securing his hands between her thighs.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

She loosened her grip on his throat, almost caressing and he wheezed.

“Gallifrey doesn’t exist anymore and I am not Victor,” he managed to cry out. “I don’t even know what this is about? What does the Silence want with me?”

But he knew the answer. The Silence. Victor had talked about them at some point in his letters. It was a case he was trying to build, only a student at the time. Religious zealots, they had labelled him the Antichrist.

He had harmed their organisation a great deal, not quite legally if he remembered well.

But it was years before his disappearance. Even before he had met River.

Which meant River had always been one of them.

He struggled more, trying to wring his wrist out of her tights but she was crushing him, incredibly strong.

She levelled herself to his ear, finding a way to his breathing, still blinking face. His hair was white with sand, falling in his face.

“Do you want to know how he disappeared? That I can give you, my love.” She whispered to the crest of his ear. He felt a tear falling there and he shuddered. ”Like Ettore Mayorana. I led him to Long Beach docks. People saw him talking to the moon; it was me in the water. They dragged him in the water, with me, and drown him. And then nothing.  So... all of the oceans, every dock that ever was linked to Long Beach - where do you think they could have dropped him? No trace left. I thought it was a beautiful way to disappear, at least. Why did you have to come back from Europe, Titus?”

The pounding in his chest against the ground was unbearable. He could hear it louder than the wind, louder than her ragged breath against his ear. He would lose his mind before dying.

“What am I, River?” He croaked, exhausted. “What am I to you?”

Everything had gone so fast. He had held her made loved to her not the night before.

_What kind of play had she been playing all along?_

“Hush. Don’t worry, I will not let myself get away with this one. There’s only one person in the universe who hates me as much as you do.” A whisper against his ear and he bucked once more. Her hand crept up to his nape.

From the corner of his eyes, he could see the glimmer from before coming closer, a dark large figure hovering behind. Observing. Or trying to find his way.

“Please,” he begged.

She caressed the curve of his jaw and he hid his face in the crook of her neck. Refusing.  Everything that had happened. From his custom-made trap in the form of a woman to the gutting feeling his brother got to live with her so much longer than he did. He was jealous of a dead man, over a religious puppet, corpse bride and killer of his brother.

”It’s okay, I’m here,” she sang. ”I’m sorry, my love.”

He felt simultaneously a kiss, on his jaw, and a hand, breaking his neck.


	5. AfterBurn Report

It was a city grey and dark, all glass and shards. Different from Black Rock City. Ages ago. In another life.

Mrs. Kovarian was standing outside a building, leafing through a blue book, oblivious to the stillness of the woman by her side. There was a page missing, and she frowned, caressing the hasty tear. She shrugged her questions away.

“I hope I will not have to warn you again. Twice. On the same assignment. And such a pretty statue too. I have to say, getting rid of his body in the burning temple was messy –all those half-burnt body parts you had to retrieve and discard of, where did you hide them-, but glorious. They will appreciate the touch. You probably got the idea from the doll anyway. It makes up for the fact none of us could actually be there, but everything works out fine.”

She heaved a sigh before shaking her head.

“Oh, River, River, River. You’re in for a re-education, I tell you. You should have known when you joined in. But you were so young. Oh, well. Lucky for you, we really can’t afford to lose such a dear little head.” She turned her face to the blond woman and patted her head lightly, the woman swallowing hard. “River, dear, I’m afraid your next assignment will require a lot more footw-”

“Shut up. Not any more.”

Mrs. K. froze and glared at the woman by her side.

“What do you mean ‘not anymore’?” She rasped, menacingly, as she got closer to Melody.

“Do not call me River again.”

They stood, glaring at each other before Mrs. K. looked away and muttered, detached:

“As you wish, my dear.”

 

Rory unlocked the door to his flat, letting out a small relieved sigh. He dropped his bags in the hallway, entered the living room and froze.

“Docky?”

Titus was waiting for him on the sofa, dipping fish fingers into custard. Rory rushed to his side, aghast.

“What are you doing here?” He cried out. "River said she had lost you in the storm and, that note you left was frankly bizarre and do you realise they launched a search in the desert to find you and we thought you-”

Titus waved a fish finger dripping with cream in his face and Rory made a disgusted noise.

“What happened?”

Titus swallowed, grinned stupidly and Rory smacked his head to obtain an answer.

“A snap of her fingers, very well located, “he marvelled. “And a partner who I think is a little too devoted. You’re right, Jack!” He whistled. ”Keep away from that man.”

“What?” Rory opened his arms, flabbergasted. “What on Earth are you talking about?”

Titus gave him a beleaguered look, suddenly more serious.

“Do you know where River is? Right now?”

Rory shrugged, noncommittal.

“She is taking a course with her teacher in New York. She does that. A lot.” He sighed. “Maybe. You know, I don’t always know where she is, right?”

Titus was deep in thought. He put the bowl of custard on the coffee table near the fish fingers and intertwined his long hands together. His brows were tense and Rory was beginning to feel concerned.

“Are you still in touch with that brilliant woman? Martha, the one who worked with the hush-hush sect dismantling program.”

“Docky,“ Rory put an hand to his forehead, feeling his temperature. ”Why?” Rory was lacking patience for his enigma.

 “We’re starting a revolution.”

Titus shot him a scheming glance and Rory grimaced, as if thinking ‘Oh dear, again’.

“Right. And you need River for that?”

“No, not yet. But I think she is going to need me.”


End file.
